January Life

A very long time ago my mom gave me a whole bunch of "Nature Friends" magazines and I promptly stored them somewhere out of the way. Fast forward probably close to a year, and Carter has discovered them. He'll spend close to a half hour or more sitting on the floor looking through his magazines. 

Last week we headed to the Children's Museum in Bloomington for Taevin's 3rd birthday. The kids had a great time, and it was pretty much impossible to get to them both to look at me at the same time for a picture. They loved the grocery store best of all. I finally hauled them out of there after 3 hours since it was past lunch time. I think they would have skipped both lunch and naps had I let them. 

Lately we've been trying to get Bridget to have a more rounded diet, ie: more dairy besides yogurt, more fruit besides grapes, and any sort of vegetable. This quiche was the first attempt. I happen to love broccoli so I chopped it finely enough that she couldn't pick it all out, and added mushrooms to appease Luke. :) Carter and I both thought the result was delicious, Luke thought the broccoli was a little much, and Bridget ended up gagging on a bite and throwing up on her plate. We'll wait a while to try broccoli again. 

Overall, however, she has been doing much better. I made some Southwest chicken wraps one night and she actually ate mashed up black beans in them (granted, she didn't know they were there, but still)! We've also added mandarin oranges/cuties, and apples to her list of approved fruit. I still haven't come up with a vegetable she'll eat, but hopefully she'll get there.

Carter is the exact opposite of Bridget. He'll scorn hot dogs or chicken nuggets for things like salsa, green beans, grapefruit, cooked carrots, and quiche with broccoli. :) I'm thankful, but it's a little weird. 

Last Friday we got watch Joelle and Maggie. Poor Maggie was probably way over stimulated by the time she went home. The kids could hardly move more than a foot from her for the first half hour. Bridget couldn't stop giving her toys (notice the huge pile) and Carter wouldn't stop rubbing her head. 

I have a feeling that the first few days (or weeks) of Alison's life I'm going to be saying things like "give her some room to breath," "back away from the baby," and "get out of her face!" She will be one loved baby (at least until they figure out that she isn't going home at the end of the evening...).

Pardon the bad picture, but I had to include this! Carter is my snuggle buddy and will randomly stop by me while playing and get in a few snuggles before running off again. It's pretty sweet. I call him my baby, and he'll correct me with "I not a baby! I Tar-ter." It's kind of hard to think of him not being my baby anymore! 

Freezing Days

This past Monday it was COLD. Like -18 degrees cold. So we bundled up and stayed inside all day.  :) I didn't even get the mail. I decided to knock off something from my "before baby comes" to-do list, and went through all the kids clothes from the past 3.5 years. I cleaned out some I knew I wouldn't reuse and reorganized everything else. We still have a lot of clothes!

The kids (with Bridget as the mastermind) come up with all sorts of random things to play. This day they played sleepover party in the nursery, complete with blankets, pillows, and lots of books. Unfortunately, no sleeping ever occured. 

By Friday we were going a little stir crazy so we called up the Grimm's and all headed to Jumping Jax, a new inflatable bouncy house place in Washington. The kids had a great time running, jumping, sliding, and burning off energy. 

After playing hard we went to Firehouse Pizza (probably Bridget's favorite place to eat) for lunch. Then it was home for naps! 

The other night after making a large pot of soup, I called up our friends Andrew and Lindsay, who had just had a baby, to see if they wanted some food. They did, so we headed over there with soup, and to meet baby Eva. Both kids were very excited to hold her, although it didn't last long since she was screaming.  :)  Based on the half hour we were there, our poor baby is going to have to get used to being bumped and knocked around! 

It's been a lot of fun to see the kids learning about "baby Alison in your tummy" (which is how they refer to her). One morning during breakfast I showed them a video of a baby developing in-utero and told them that this is what baby Alison looks like. Now they ask to watch "the movie about what baby Alison looks like in your tummy" all the time. Bridget wondered how Alison gets food, so Luke gave a rudimentary lesson on how the umbilical cord works. She's missing some details, but she's got the general idea, and often reminds me while I'm eating that this food is going into baby Alison's tummy. :)

Winter Days

Last Sunday Bridget came down with a very light case of the stomach flu. She threw up at the Big Schick Christmas during supper, but acted totally fine the rest of the evening. While my mom was helping get her cleaned up Bridget informed her that "throw up is sick!" I was starting to think maybe she had just choked or gagged on something, but Monday morning she came downstairs and threw up again. She was a pretty sad little girl and spent the rest of morning sleeping on the couch. Then by afternoon she was her usual self again.

Carter thought the ability to watch movies on the laptop all morning while Bridget slept was great! He did have a hard time leaving her alone and letting her sleep, and kept begging to go see her. When I finally let him tiptoe in the living room, he ran over to her and kissed her forehead before coming back to the kitchen. It was pretty cute.

Bridget needed someone to dance with and asked Luke if he would be her prince (melt my heart). She quickly decided that she needed someone smaller, though.

Luke took off new year's eve, and we enjoyed another day of being together. We ran a few errands and the kids got to pick out a movie to watch at the "movie store." Since Bridget had been sick the day before, we thought it'd be best if we didn't hang out with other people and spread any germs we might be carrying around. We let them watch their movie after supper, with popcorn and cookies, and then put them to bed a little before 9. After that, Luke and I settled in with a huge bowl of shrimp, 2 whole pounds of hot wings, and The Wolverine. We crawled into bed right at midnight, and totally crashed! We are not used to staying at that late anymore!

New Year's Day we headed to my mom and dad's for supper and the evening. Of course Grandma had to read one the kids' favorite books, Adam Raccoon at Forever Falls. 

Thursday morning Luke headed back to work, and since Carter had come down with a cold, he got to stay in his pajama's all day. This boy loves "bawberries" and can clean off half a box in a sitting. 

The little girl at the other end of the table...sent down there because they couldn't leave each other alone.

A few days before Christmas we watched Despicable Me with the kids and they loved it, begging to watch it every single day. So the other night we rented Despicable Me 2, which just as big of a hit as the first one!

You have to look closely at this picture to figure out what's going on. For Christmas my brothers both got remote control helicopters, and Carter thinks they are the greatest thing ever (actually, he thinks anything Adam and Luke do or have is the coolest). He re-discovered his toy helicopter in the toy box, and for the past few days had been attempting to fly it using his monitor. He'll comment that "it's not working" every once in a while, but that doesn't stop him from carrying them both around all day!

Baby's Blog Debut!

As of last week, I am officially halfway done being pregnant! Hurray!  :) 

We had a 20 week ultrasound last week, and once again confirmed that our little one is still a girl. She weighs about 11 ounces, and is about 10.5 inches long. We are all excited to meet her in person!

Meet little Alison Kate Knapp:

profile

tiny little foot

Belly picture from today, at 21 weeks.

Despite Alison's size, she can pack a pretty good punch when it comes to kicking. She's currently breech, and enjoys playing kickball with my bladder. She also doesn't kick a whole lot during the day, but come 9pm, she makes her presence very well known. I'm a little worried about this!